Welcome!

Thanks for joining me on my latest adventure!

Join me at the end of this chapter for a more in-depth A/N.

Real quick though – Mary's story will come with trigger warnings. We'll learn more about her along the way, and I'll give you all a heads up at the beginning of the dark chapters. Just know that I only write E/B HEA.

I may put them through a lot along the way, but I promise we'll get there. Just stick with me like my sunshine Fran does – her magical red ink turns this into what it is! And to my prereaders who put up with my antics – you deserve a medal.

To get the tone for this story, listen to Mad World by Gary Jules. Even though this story may be dark, I promise there will be a lot of light.

Chapter 1

Her name is Mary.

It's a statement she repeats to herself over and over. Sometimes the words play on a loop in her mind. Other times she says them out loud for herself to hear. She hopes one of these times it will make the wind blow them off to faraway places.

Four simple words, really. Simple, but heavy.

Heavy enough to bring her here to the top of a hill. It's a cliff of sorts, she figures, looking down at the choppy water below where she stands.

She's been here before.

Despite the proximity to the dangerous and rocky edge and rough waters below, it's a peaceful place to be. There are guardrails and signs, warning of the apparent dangers that lie ahead. Usually, all visitors take note and exercise caution while still being able to appreciate the views surrounding them.

Usually.

Not her.

Not Mary.

Instead, she sits on the guardrail overlooking that cliff, warning signs left far behind in her wake. She's careful about where she places her feet, careful not to let the rocks contribute any further to her downfall. They've already done enough damage; blood seeps slowly and quietly from the cuts and scrapes left behind by nature's beauty sitting upon the earth. She can't feel the abrasions, anyway; the chill from the winter air has made her bare feet grow numb as the minutes trickle by.

The time ticks, yet it stands still. Every minute counts, yet nothing matters at all. She wonders briefly if anything, not just her dwindling time, ever mattered at all in her pathetic, little life.

A gust of wind strikes, blowing her hair in angry knots across her face, but she makes no effort to move the strands back into place. She lets them sit there, blocking her view of the edge and the raging sea below. If it weren't for the sound, she could almost forget she was near a body of water at all; the combination of the onyx depths beneath her and blackened sky above threaten the security of her vision.

She doesn't want a single misplaced step to be the cause of her fall.

Yet.

The cold wind and the harsh environment do nothing to stop the true reason for her visit to the cliff tonight.

Nothing about tonight would make her change her mind.

Mary sighs into the empty night, no one around her to hear it. She wonders why she didn't think of coming here sooner; wonders why it has taken twenty-three years of her miserable existence to say she'd finally had enough—that nothing is worth the pain she felt, the pain she holds onto, every single day of her life.

Tonight, her pain would finally end.

With no one tethering her to this lonely and cruel world, she holds no regrets in her heart; no regrets towards herself or anyone else as she prepares to bid this world farewell.

Her hand, however, buried deep within the pocket of the gray hooded sweatshirt she loves so much, holds a full bottle of recently refilled pills. Every space in the bottle, from the bottom to top, holds a promise to end her suffering.

There was a point in her life where this place, this spot, in particular, was a place of comfort. Mary might even say a time of joy. But, to be honest, she wasn't familiar enough with the word to comfortably call it that.

Over the years, coming up to the cliff to escape the nightmare she lived in was the only time she felt anything other than pain. Worthlessness. Shame.

It makes complete sense that this is where it all ends. Sometimes, when her head is clear, coming up here brings a sense of clarity she has rarely been graced with. The cobwebs disappear, the fire in her heart dissipates from a raging inferno to a slow burn, and a brief peace washes over her body.

This is how she wants to feel when she's finally ready to go. She wants to be enveloped in peace.

In quiet.

In calmness.

She wants to slip away peacefully, the complete opposite of how she lives her life. If her life were a tornado, her death would be like drifting off into a deep sleep.

When the time comes.

She's not ready yet.

With the chill against her cheek and the cold, damp soil slipping in between her toes, she wants to spend these last minutes feeling nature's beauty once and for all.

For now, she wants to feel the numbness in her toes slip slowly up her body until she could truly feel no more. Mary wants the coldness from her heart to match the coldness of the air around her. The water churns angrily beneath her, the water alone bringing up an icy chill that rattles her bones and makes her tighten her arms around herself.

She's shaking, but not from fear. She thinks it's more because of what she's feeling at the moment.

An acceptance.

A closure.

An end.

Is it excitement that has her hands shaking like the leaves that dance around her feet in the dark?

Like joy, excitement is a feeling that has always evaded her. Years ago, when she was still foolish enough to believe her life could change, she held that particular emotion, excitement, close to her heart and would let it escape every Friday, and only on Friday, before she knew any better.

It would emerge on the walk home from school, presenting itself to everyone on the outside as a swing in her arms and a hop in her step. It would appear on her lips in what could be construed as a small smile, but then again, no one could really be sure as Mary only let those smiles escape on Fridays.

This was before she was old enough to know any better—before she knew that nothing in her life would ever be deemed worthy of excitement; when she was still young enough to believe that this dark and difficult time in her life would be fleeting.

Every Friday after school, no matter where they were living at the time, Mary would peer out of the corner of her eye, down the corner, to see if her mother's car would be in the driveway.

It always was.

Which meant Mary would spend the weekend hiding in a locked closet, trying to make herself invisible until school again on Monday morning. Sometimes it worked – if she had planned ahead of time, she could slip into her closet unnoticed with all the necessities she would need for two days. She would reemerge on Monday morning, her absence still unknown, and would pick up exactly where she had left off.

Some Fridays, though, she would turn the corner, and the driveway would be empty. On those days, Mary knew she would have the weekend to herself. She wouldn't have to share it with her mother or any of her mother's houseguests.

Mary was quiet and kept quiet, so her secrets would remain hidden from those that mattered. The last thing she needed was her darkness getting demolished by people who thought they could help but truthfully only made things exponentially worse.

All those years hiding in the closet made her an expert on living an invisible life. She is a ghost without a death, alive but without purpose. She lived in her own shadows for so long that it's impossible for her to remember a time when she wasn't chasing the theoretical light at the end of the tunnel.

Tonight, is different.

She can see the light at the end of the tunnel—the one she always used to chase. But this time, she reaches her hand out in hopes she can touch it. This time, she's learned how to reach the light. She's accepted it. Now she knows that in order for the darkness to go away, she simply has to leave it behind.

Leaving the darkness behind also means leaving everything else in her life, as well. Mary is not shocked that she comes up emptyhanded when she tries to count her blessings on her fingers.

Nothing.

It has taken her twenty-three years to make this choice, and if she was honest, it is twenty-three years too late. She knows when she opens the bottle buried in her sweatshirt, the world will keep spinning. The wind will still blow, the water will still churn, the fire will keep burning.

No one's life will come to a sudden halt. No supervisor will call to ask where she is and why she hasn't shown up for work. No family will grieve for her; they abandoned her long ago.

For years, it's just been her. Just Mary and her tiny, unkempt apartment in a sketchy part of town that no one goes to unless you live there or are in need of an unhealthy fix. In the end, it all worked out for her.

The bottle in her pocket rattles as she shifts on the guardrail, reminding her to send an empty thank you to the sky to her upstairs neighbor who gave her the pills, no questions asked, after she gave him a quick blow in the shared parking lot of their apartment building. She had wiped her hands against her mouth when he was finished, ready to rid herself and leave all evidence of him and this life behind her.

The sound of the pills inside the bottle brings an inhale from her lungs, slowly, so she can appreciate one last gulp of air so fresh it momentarily halts her decision to leave this world behind.

Fleetingly.

As quickly as the hesitation begins, her mother's image appears; a reminder that nothing in this life, not even the purest and freshest of air this cliff brings, could rid her of the life that woman put her through.

She was just a child. Her innocence taken before Mary knew it was something she should have held onto for as long as she could.

Not anymore.

Her hand shakes as she twists the cap open, revealing the tiny pills, the answer to the prayer she had begged God for since she was a little girl hiding in that fucking closet.

Please just make it stop.

It would stop tonight.

Now.

One pill turns into two. Two turns into four. Four turns into a bottle flipped upside down into an awaiting mouth.

A flipped bottle turns into her collapsed form, falling wordlessly onto the deserted dirt beneath her feet in the same way she lived her life.

Alone.

And later, when they find her cold, lifeless body, they also find a weak beating from somewhere in the iced fortress of her heart.

"Who is she?" One of them asks as they run along with the stretcher at the nearest hospital. The combination of the fluorescent lights and death creeping into her bones makes her almost as white as the sheets on which she rests.

Charlie Swan, the young deputy in charge of this town, clears his throat and looks over at the paramedic talking to him.

"Her name is Mary."

This is Mary. Her story won't be pretty, and I plan on doing more implying than providing direct details MOST OF THE TIME. Sometimes I will have to go into detail, but I'll warn you ahead of time.

If you've read my other stories, you know most of my stories start off slow. I need you to know these characters, connect with their life experiences. I promise you it will be worth it.

Next up, we meet Masen.

After that, Bella.

And in Chapter Four, Edward.

Join my Facebook group, Lily Jill Fics, for teasers of all four characters and upcoming chapters.